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Re: Garritan Purchases Giga Technology Assets from Tascam

Originally Posted by TheAlps

This is the best news I have had all year!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations Gary, I couldnt be happier for you or for the fate of GigaStudio! Not only can I finally breath easy that all my investments in upgrading to GS4 64 bit last year will finally get a stable release but I am truly excited to see where your talent and prowess will lead this product. My very best wishes on a successful endeavor!

How do you get that from the press release? it doesn't say that there will be any support for Gigastudio. It doesn't say that there will be any updates. In fact there is nothing to say that Gigastudio as a sample player will ever exist again. Don't get too excited too soon.

Re: Garritan Purchases Giga Technology Assets from Tascam

The way GigaStudio 4 was implemented (and prior versions) goes against good programming methods for Windows. For better performance they wrote it down in Kernel mode. This bypasses all the safeguards built into Windows. All applications should be written in the application layer. All other modern samplers are written in the application layer. They may not have the performance of Giga but don't have the application incompatibilities. GVi was a step in the right direction but it came too late.

Re: Garritan Purchases Giga Technology Assets from Tascam

Originally Posted by Haydn

The way GigaStudio 4 was implemented (and prior versions) goes against good programming methods for Windows. For better performance they wrote it down in Kernel mode. This bypasses all the safeguards built into Windows. All applications should be written in the application layer. All other modern samplers are written in the application layer. They may not have the performance of Giga but don't have the application incompatibilities. GVi was a step in the right direction but it came too late.

Jim

I agree - but only to a point.

Performance was critical in the early days, when PCs weren't as powerful.

Also, there's nothing wrong with writing stuff in Kernel mode. Without it, we'd have no drivers.

Certainly, GVI and a player came too late. But what was really missing was a strategy for minimizing user risk. This could have included some known-to-work kit parts lists. They could have made some demo code that we could download and run to ensure performance and stability. As it was, they pushed all the risk on the user, and when Kontakt came along, people chose the lower risk option.

Keep in mind that Giga runs as solid as can be - but not on all systems. It's like clean A-type blood. It doesn't work in a B-type person, but works all the time in A-type people. The problem is that we didn't know if Giga was compatible with our system before we bought the program. Some people had problems, they share bad word of mouth, and the market shrinks.

There was also the problem with needing the right sound card. Frankly, they should have made a "workaround mode" that would work at low performance with any soundcard. In that case, a GSIF card would have been a performance upgrade, not a necessity.

So, to recap, they should have offered:
1) A downloadable demo program that would confirm a compatible system,
2) a list of known working systems parts lists, and
3) a workaround mode that would not require a GSIF soundcard.

Like anything, Kernel mode has advantages and disadvantages. Unfortunately, Tascam didn't have a strategy for minimizing the disadvantages.

Re: Garritan Purchases Giga Technology Assets from Tascam

I never had any problems with any of my 4 Giga machines, but in terms of memory loading (and efficiency) I could get 4 or 5 times as many samples loaded with other options. Giga was getting so far behind the times that GS4 was never going to save the brand.

Re: Garritan Purchases Giga Technology Assets from Tascam

Originally Posted by Daryl

How do you get that from the press release? it doesn't say that there will be any support for Gigastudio. It doesn't say that there will be any updates. In fact there is nothing to say that Gigastudio as a sample player will ever exist again. Don't get too excited too soon.

D

I am assuming that there will be a stable release of the GS4 64 bit release, even if it is called something else and I have to pay for it full price. Of course I am not happy that my investments in the actual software are down the drain but at least my hardware and samples will find a new home. I cant imagine that the new owners would buy the technology and not release at least a product similar to the spirit of the technology behind Giga (and I think its inferred when Gary talks about continuing to use and support the .gig format as that is a major part of what they bought).

I would be seriously dissapointed if Gary and his team only use Giga technology to further their own products and to not use the opportunity to present new options for current users to continue using the Giga product line as a stand alone sampler. It would be very dissapointing indeed.

While I think that Gary's company has released excellent products, using the newly bought giga technology to only support folks who will use GPO and similar products would be a mistake. I have tens of thousands of dollars in gigastudio format samples that arent Garritan samples and while I mainly use VSL Vienna Instruments today for orchestral recreations, my investments in hardware (farmed giga computers) and in samples is something that I dearly would like to know has a future in my studio. Because honestly if the outcome is that Giga is integrated into Garritan only products and we see yet another closed door policy among music software development, I will just slowly kill off my giga line and get more and more in bed with the current trend (Vienna, Symphobia/SAM, Kontakt, etc) and its doubtful I will re-build my sampling infrastructure to be solely or mainly based on Garritan sample libraries. (and yes I do own some and they are very good, just not what I prefer as of today for most things, although I would LOVE to see the EWI - ready samples available as a virtual instrument without buying a new EWI, since programming my setup to work with my 3030m is a nightmare)

Re: Garritan Purchases Giga Technology Assets from Tascam

Jon,

It's one thing writing drivers for kernel mode. These days many drivers are written in user mode except video drivers. Even parts of these are up in user mode. Applications shouldn't be down in this layer as there is no protection from them crashing the system.

Re: Garritan Purchases Giga Technology Assets from Tascam

Applications shouldn't be down in this layer as there is no protection from them crashing the system.

I know the difference between kernel and user mode well, as I've written some driver code, but mostly application code.

IMHO, "shouldn't" is a moral term, not a technical one. As a long time Giga user, the program has been very stable on my system. It just plain works (on compatible machines).

On the other hand, I've had VSTis in Sonar crash and then fail to load the samples, preventing me from loading my sequence. This has resulted in me losing my work.

On the rare occasions where GSx has crashed, I simply reboot. Big deal. On the few occasions where my sequence with VSTi was unloadable, I lost my music, which is a big deal.

The core problem with Giga being in the kernel has been that it absolutely does not work on some hardware/driver combinations. Tascam's policies put all the risk on the buyer with no way to try before you buy. Once competitive products became available, it was easy to tar Giga with FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt.)

From the user experience, once you have Giga running on a compatible machine, there is no difference between user and kernel mode - except possibly performance. (And frankly, Tascam never did a great job of publishing system specs and benchmarks. If the numbers were good, and the marketing done well, many customers might have demanded kernel mode.)

Anyway, the "shouldn't" argument is at odds with my direct experience. Bumblebees "shouldn't" fly either, but they do.

Re: Garritan Purchases Giga Technology Assets from Tascam

I was a longtime user of Giga until Giga3 came out. I gave up on it after it became unregistered the 4th time in a little over a months time. Tascam started giving me a hard time the last time so I just said heck with it. Giga was on it's own machine at the time.

Sonar has a 'safe' mode to load a sequence if it has issues with a plugin. You can pick which VST's you want to load which allows a user to pinpoint the troublesome one. I've never lost a sequence in all the years of using Sonar. There is also a feature to save multiple versions each time you save. I have 5 different versions available in case the last one has an issue or I did something stupid. Then I just load in the older one.